Oligoribonucleic acids have variety of usefulness such as applicability as active ingredients of medicaments for controlling expression of genes including antisense RNA and RNAi, as well as applicability as RNA probes for gene analyses. Oligoribonucleic acids can generally be prepared by the solid-phase synthetic method using a phosphoroamidite compound (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 109, 7845, 1987). However, since β-D-ribose of ribonucleotide constituting ribonucleic acid has hydroxyl group at the 2-position (in the specification, this hydroxyl group is referred to as “2′-hydroxyl group” for ribonucleotides and derivatives thereof, as well as for ribonucleosides and derivatives thereof), production of oligoribonucleic acids based on the solid phase synthetic method has a problem that production yield is significantly influenced by type of protective group for this 2′-hydroxyl group, unlike the methods for producing deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA).
As protective groups of the 2′-hydroxyl group used for the oligoribonucleic acid preparation, there are known silyl type protective groups such as tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) group and triisopropylsilyl (TIPS) group described in the aforementioned publication (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 109, 7845, 1987). In particular, since TBDMS can be removed by treatment with fluoride ions under neutral conditions, the protective group has been widely used in preparation of oligoribonucleic acids. However, when TBDMS is used as a protective group of the 2′-hydroxyl group, TBDMS may translocates to a 3′-hydroxyl group at the time of phosphoroamidation of the 3′-hydroxyl group. Moreover, since the TBDMS group is three-dimensionally bulky, the group also has a problem of reduced efficiency of condensation reaction for generating a nucleotide bond due to steric hindrance.
It is also known that use of 1-(2-cyanoethoxy)ethyl (CEE) group provided as an acetal type protective group (Helvetica Chimica Acta, 81, 1545, 1998; Tetrahedron Lett., 45, 9529, 2004) as a protective group of the 2′-hydroxyl group achieves efficient preparation of oligoribonucleic acids (International Patent Publication WO2005/23828). However, it is also known that an acetal type protective group is generally unstable to acids, thus sufficient stability cannot be secured for long chain synthesis, and acrylonitrile produced in the reaction system at the time of deprotection causes a side reaction with the nucleobase moieties. Moreover, since this protective group has an asymmetric center, the group also has a problem that a reaction product becomes a mixture of diastereomers after the introduction of the protective group, and thus identification of the target compound becomes difficult.
In order to solve the above problems, a protective group represented by —CH2—O—CH2—CH2-WG1 has been proposed as a protective group of the 2′-hydroxyl group used in the preparation of oligoribonucleic acids (International Patent Publication WO2006/22323, WG1 in the formula represents an electron withdrawing group), and a protective group using cyano group as the electron withdrawing group represented by WG1 (—CH2—O—CH2—CH2—CN, this protective group may also be referred to as “CEM”) is specifically disclosed in the aforementioned publication. This protective group has characteristic features that the group has little steric hindrance, and can be removed by treatment with fluoride ion under neutral conditions. However, this protective group also has a problem that removal efficiency at the time of treatment with fluoride ions is not fully satisfactory, and strict control of water content in a solvent used for the process of removing the protective group is required, which is undesirable from a viewpoint of manufacturing cost. Furthermore, as in the case of the CEE group, it is known that acrylonitrile is generated in the reaction system at the time of deprotection to cause a side reaction with the nucleobase moieties, and therefore, addition of a scavenger to the reaction system is essential, which causes problems from viewpoints of manufacturing cost and load on the environment.